Cardinal George Pell ‘is being made a scapegoat for others’, by Rebecca Urban, Australian (October 31, 2016)

Cardinal George Pell has launched a vociferous defence of his handling of sexual abuse allegations within the Catholic Church, insisting he was being made a “scapegoat” for others’ failings.

In a series of strongly worded submissions to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Australia’s most senior church official denies he had the knowledge or authority required to take direct action against priests accused of sexual abuse, including the notorious priests Gerard Ridsdale and Peter Searson.

Cardinal Pell dismisses the credibility of numerous witnesses and accuses counsel assisting the commission of overstating evidence, making gratuitous submissions and relying on surmise and conjecture.

“There is not a single aspect of that evidence which establishes that Father Pell acted inappropriately in any way,” said Sam Duggan, counsel acting on behalf of Cardinal Pell, in a submission released yesterday.

“Ultimately, when one assesses all of the evidence placed before the commission, including that of Cardinal Pell, the commission could not be ‘comfortably satisfied’ that any one of the allegations made against Cardinal Pell has been made out.”

In a submission focused on the inquiry into the Catholic Church in Ballarat, which largely centred on the actions of Ridsdale, Mr Duggan noted that the “extensive process had not produced a single witness, nor a single document, which evidences that any person, ... provided information to ... Pell which would have indicated that Ridsdale was abusing children”.

Cardinal Pell, a priest in Ballarat from 1973 to 1983, took particular issue with counsel assisting the commission’s take on what transpired at a Consultors Meeting held in September 1982, from which it submits that it was the “common understanding of the meeting that complaints that Ridsdale had sexually abused children was the reason it had become necessary to move him”.

Mr Duggan said the counsel assisting’s submission was based on mere “speculation” as “there is no direct evidentiary support whatsoever for the proposition that those at the meeting were given to understand that Ridsdale was being moved because he was or might be a child abuser”.

He said all of the counsel assisting’s submissions in support of that proposition were based entirely on “surmise and conjecture”.

Cardinal Pell also sought to distance himself from the church’s investigations into Searson, who was parish priest of Doveton from 1984 until March 1997, when he was suspended by Pell after he became Archbishop of Melbourne.

Counsel assisting is seeking a finding that Cardinal Pell and other senior archdiocesan officials failed to exercise proper care for the children of Doveton, arguing that Cardinal Pell should have taken direct action to investigate the veracity of sexual misconduct complaints against Searson, which included rape and sexual molestation.

“Such a finding unfairly makes ... Pell the scapegoat for failures with respect to Searson for which he was not to blame,” Mr Duggan said. “He was not a cardinal in 1989, he was an auxiliary bishop. ”

While each of the allegations against Searson were “disturbing”, none was made known to Cardinal Pell during his time serving under Archbishop Frank Little.